7 Tips for Running an Effective Meeting

If you can’t make the meeting matter then don’t meet

Decide beforehand if you need to hold the meeting and only invite the people that need to be there. Managers waste a lot of time because they put too much of a focus on face-time, or because they get stuck in their routine. If you want to update your team or send them a status report then an email will get the job done. Of course meetings are better than emails for instant feedback. Its like having a wedding invitation business.

Define the goals of the meeting and send out an agenda in advance

You need to give your meetings some structure. Just telling the people the intended result of a meeting will often leave them inspired and make for a more productive meeting. It will give each meeting something that every meeting needs at the very least; a goa. Make sure that all participants understand what the aims of the meeting are by putting together an agenda in advance.

Take charge of the meeting and keep it moving forward

A good meeting is created through good conference room scheduling. Take charge of your meetings and make sure everyone understands you want to ensure the conversation is useful, relevant and timely. Your colleague should feel that you respect their time and you can show this by ensuring that they can all see a clock or timer. To keep to your schedule you also need to stay on topic. If someone moves the conversation off-topic then thank them for their input and express you want to get back to the agenda.

Make Sure Everyone Has Their Say

The point of a meeting is to open up two-way communication so you need to ensure that everyone offers their honest input. It is the responsibility of the meeting leader to ensure that everyone gets a say. You need to avoid making your own opinion too obvious to create consensus and come to a group decision. Leaders can easily stifle conversation and discourse if everyone involved believes that the decision has already been made. Don’t dismiss ideas too quickly either, even if they are really bad.

End the meeting with an action plan and get everyone up to speed on what happens next

As well as doing this you need to find out from everyone present if they felt that the meeting was useful, and if they have any ideas about what could make the next meeting better. Perform a follow-up debriefing by yourself to enhance your room scheduling software.

Track the progress of the meeting and the things declared

Don’t forget to keep everyone updated on developments. This will make organising the next meeting easier.

Make sure everyone who needs to know knows what was decided and what happens next

It’s all too easy to go back to your office after a meeting and forget everything that you decided and all the great new ideas you had. That’s why you need a system that can keep track of any decisions that were made and any assignments people took on. That way you can follow up on them and keep things moving forward, even if you don’t make a habit of distributing the complete minutes of a meeting.